Caught Serving Alcohol to Minors, Mistake on the Citation

My question involves Professional negligence in the state of: Iowa

I have a friend that was cited for providiong alcohol to a minor in a retuarant sting operation.
The citatation she recieved had the information of another individual. The two individual have the same first name and last name but spell the first name slightly different. None of the information for the individual being charged is correct for her. The name is spelled wrong, the dob is incorrect, and the address is an address this person has never lived. Does the person charged have any chance of fighting this citation since all of information on the citatition she signed is charging another individual?

if the citing officer can identify your friend as the offender, clerical errors become meaningless. A citation is a means to charge a person without arresting them and taking them to the jail. Charges can be amended or added later. That means, even if the citation is thrown away, your friend can still be charged.




How was it that the officer put down all this wrong information that just happened to be that of the other person? Did your friend provide incorrect information? I hope not. That could add to the charges.

I don't know how Iowa treats serving a minor but in some states it is pretty serious. I suspect friend should be speaking with a lawyer rather than playing around asking questions such as this.

The meeting with her lawyer is tomorrow. The individual charged did not give any information to the police officer. A simple search of the iowacourts.gov website provides me the information of the individuals information that was incorrectly put on the citation so the clerical error was actually made out with another actual persons information.

so they gave your friend a ticket and got the information from the phone book or something?


Did they hand "friend" a citation while they were there? Did it have a name or any of the information you say is incorrect? Where did they get that information?


regardless, as I said; if the officer wants to issue a citation with the correct info on it to "friend", he can. Haven't checked the statute of limitations but I would expect at least a year. That means anytime in that year, "friend" could be charged for the crime that night.